


Your Move

by TeratoCybernetics



Category: Discworld, Homestuck
Genre: Other, but does it ship?, crossovers, they both like black, tyranny, verbal fencing, what have I done?, where is my life going
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeratoCybernetics/pseuds/TeratoCybernetics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I somehow doubt that your own library is filled with lighthearted bedtime stories, or illuminating treatises of philosophy.” Her answering smile has far too many teeth for anything that possesses feet to set on land, for anything that has ever seen sky. For all her impressive height, she possesses a menacing grace, even simply arranging herself on the chair in front of his desk in a rustle of purple and black silks. “But we aren’t here to discuss literature, are we?”</p><p>“No. You say you have found one of my spies.”</p><p>Er. I found the Discstuck tag on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Move

“So...How did you say this was pronounced, in your language?”

  
“It’s ‘chess’, your Condescension.” Vetinari looks up, and up some more. He maintains a carefully bland expression as he watches her turning over a king carved from black granite in her long, grey fingers, as she traces the carving with a single manicured talon. He is not a small man, but the troll Empress is, well, a _troll_ , though very different from the ones he’s used to. For one, she’s not made entirely of rock.

  
He’s had plenty of opportunity to compare as of recent; the existing trolls of Ankh-Morpork have been picketing for the exclusive right to their species’ name for weeks, his own personal, slow and angry rockslide just outside of his doors. As for the newcomers, they seem to find the whole thing and the ensuing mob brawls that they tend to stir up like they just can’t help it, entertainment on par with a good football game or a hanging. Needless to say, the Night Watch has been extraordinarily busy.

  
Most of their kind as far as he’s seen are a similar size to humans on average, but there seem to be fewer in the middling range; they're more often tiny or enormous. Their Empress is one of the taller ones, and as such has a good head up on Vetinari even before the red-golden horns that would nearly scrape the ceiling of most buildings. It had been difficult to plot a path from the front door to his office that she could fit through without needing to crouch, and at least three lintels would need replacing tomorrow.

  
“I’ve been looking over the rules in your library; it’s an amazingly intricate little dalliance. We have something similar. We call it ‘Slaughter’, as there’s usually some kind of actual weaponry involved.” Her voice is deeper than one might expect, with an odd clicking lilt to it, bleedover from her own tongue. With the tick of stone-on-stone, she sets the figure down precisely in the same position on the chessboard that she’d found it, her expression betraying only a hint of anything that might be going on beneath. She seems amused, like she’s waiting for a specific kind of reaction, watching him from halfway beneath her lashes. His answer is a slightly raised brow as he weighs the situation, the possible outcomes.

  
“Of course there is. I’ve been reading some of your histories. Your race is blunt, for lack of a better word.” She laughs outright at this, and it is not a nice sound. Vetinari paces around to his own chair, straightens his uniform before seating himself.

  
“You’ve been dealing too often with the Grand Highblood. He gave you the reading material, if I’m not mistaken? He is every bit a soldier, loyal, but sometimes too immersed in his brutality, no art to it whatsoever, and what he deems important r͐eflects it. I can find better for you than his bloody battles.”

  
“I somehow doubt that your own library is filled with lighthearted bedtime stories, or illuminating treatises of philosophy.” Her answering smile has far too many teeth for anything that possesses feet to set on land, for anything that has ever seen sky. For all her impressive height, she possesses a menacing grace, even simply arranging herself on the chair in front of his desk in a rustle of purple and black silks. “But we aren’t here to discuss literature, are we?”

  
“No. You say you have found one of my spies."

  
“He was not much of a spy, to be completely honest. The purple hair for one. And the purple everything else as well. And the constant and frankly terrible pickup lines tried on nearly anyone with hearing. Angua’s fit to maul him and I can’t say as I blame her.”

  
“Oh, damn. Him. I was hoping it would be someone I could actually cull for their inadequacy. Dualscar is a decent general, exceedingly useful in his own ways, but I needed him not sniffing around like a barkbeast in mating season for a bit.”

  
“So there are _actual_ spies.” It isn’t a question, and she doesn't quite smirk.

  
“If you have not caught any? Then no, of course not.” Vetinari has a list of names and descriptions in the top drawer of his desk of all the spies active in the city limits, hers included, but she has just confirmed his suspicions about their protocols for captured agents. For now, they remain more useful to him alive, and he does not rise to this bait.

  
A pageboy rings a bell outside the suite before entering so that neither of the guards skewer him as he enters, carrying a tray laden with tea and another of smoked meats. Both are set shakily on the desk before the kid scuttles away, though to his credit he doesn’t spill a drop, even when his guest’s companion growls like a wolf that has half-swallowed an angry snake. Vetinari pours out two cups, and she sniffs at the red-amber liquid, the tiny tray of sugarcubes with a curious expression before dropping one into hers, stirring it with an improbably tiny spoon, and sipping.

  
“You don’t fear poison, madam?”

  
“Any substance that can even hope to poison me would have dissolved this cup first.”

  
“Very well. There will be paperwork to get your agent back, you know.”

  
“That’s why I had hope it was someone more disposable.” She sighs. “Well, the Highblood has been working rather closely with your Vimes, no?”

  
“If you mean he seems to have a disturbingly aggressive preoccupation with the head of my Watch, then yes. I think he's scheduled to accompany patrols for the rest of the week.”

  
“Then I will simply have him pick up the Orphaner next time he’s heading back my way, and he can take his time returning. They can’t stand one another, and the pompous whaleshit needs a lesson in patience, I think. One death won’t teach him, but time spent as a punching device and some day-terrors may.”

  
“People rarely learn anything except how to stay quiet, from the lessons that end in death.” His answer is wry as he flips through a neat stack of papers, before handing her a form and a stamp without looking at either. The seal is his own official one, but the ink is her bloody-orchid purple, made special in a tiny shop in Ankh. They will make it for no one else, on pain of imprisonment, and more importantly, another shop being given the highly lucrative job.

  
“That, with your official signature will release him to your custody.”

  
With a glance, she determines where to do both, stamps it and signs in both her own hard-edged language and perfect, looping-spiky cursive, allows it to dry before rolling it up and secreting it in one of her sleeves. Something tense enters the room and coils between them as the official reason for the visit is dealt with, filling the negative space left between two individuals with no patience for small talk. Long moments stretch taut where the only sound is the fireplace crackling. The Patrician breaks it first.

  
“A question, while you are here. Your -admiral?- assures me, often toothily, that you do not have a record of leaving cities standing. Why us, why now?” She picks up and sniffs at a piece of smoked fish, considering. The slight nod before it disappears between her dark lips might be at the food, or at her own thoughts. A sip of tea follows before she answers.

  
“This world is interesting. Your University, for one. I have never seen a house of schoolfeeding such as that, or the things they are capable of. My psychics are baffled by what goes on behind those walls. Even if I did not wish for that particular battalion of know-it-alls to figure out how what your people do there works, their confusion would be hilarious enough for a small reprieve. Then there are the witches, and the implications of the existence of an entire nation of rainbow-drinkers and ghasts and still stranger things I have not had time to do more than glance at." A pause. "And then there is you, dear Patrician. You and your methods.”

  
“Condesce?” His expression is as close to surprise as he ever gets, primarily consisting of a slight raising of both brows and something that might be an actual blink.

  
“You rule with as iron a fist as any I have seen, maybe even one hard as my own, but in such a way that the populace have no real idea until a line has been crossed. Some of them live their entire sordid little lives without finding out where the boundaries are. And most times, if they do step over it, they live to learn. Enough examples are made and clearly enough that eventually they make their own fences. Walls defining your laws, made of your laws, by the ones they apply to. Every single one of my Legislacerators are absolutely rabid to get leave here to study you and your legal system.” With a fluid motion, she stands again, pacing around the room with slow, even steps, stopping to flip idly through a book of music, to inspect the day’s crossword sitting on the corner of his desk. There is nothing of nerves in her movement, it is all sheer curiosity, data collection. “A lesser conqueror would mistake your mercy for weakness, but I am not lesser in any sense, and it deserves further study.”

  
 When Havelock stands, she leans over the desk, a gesture of long, long hair and tinkling jewelry, until she’s nearly nose-to-nose with him, searching his calm, dark gaze with her own gold-and-fuchsia eyes, so steady they make him think of snakes and eels, slippery-cold things. Her breath is no warmer than the air around her. Watching her lack of movement, an incredibly thorough stillness, she reads as a brutally efficient piece of weaponry, honed fine and well-worn and wrapped in gold and watered silk like a warning, like the overwrought beauty of many other venomous things.

  
“Like I said, it is simply rare that the lesson that is called for is death. Efficiency, in all things.” His mouth quirks slightly, and she laughs again.

  
 “You are exceedingly interesting, Patrician.” Straightening, she gestures to her guard wordlessly, gathers her purple silk wrap around her before retrieving her weapon from the other, a wickedly barbed, double-ended trident nearly as long as Vetinari himself is tall. From the way she handles it, he is certain the guard is a technicality, a show, and files this fact carefully away with everything else from this evening. “Remain interesting, and maybe we can continue this dialogue. I will likely see you again.”

  
“Perhaps. Until then. Show them to the gates, would you? Same way you brought them in, mind.”

  
The rulers nod slightly, casually, rather than bowing to one another, neither willing yet to lose sight of the other. His own guardsman blanches slightly and looks as if he is trying desperately to remember the path taken before stepping ahead of them, maybe a little too quickly for propriety. When they are gone, Vetinari sits again, shakes the bottle of tyrian ink he’s had made for this new connection, watching rich colour runnel down the insides of the bottle, a finger tapping his pursed lips. “Interesting indeed, madam.”


End file.
